In times like this, community self-sufficiency becomes a topic of increasing importance. Considering all the volatility in the world, between climate chaos and pandemic disease, economic downturns and continued racialized injustice, food remains a vital topic to intervene in today’s precarious politics. And gardening remains a key skill to improve our communities’ success in any of those interventions.

But gardening is not enough! We must also think about how we organize politically, what we organize for, and why we organize in the first place. Whether we are starting urban gardens, protesting police violence, or plotting to overthrow capitalism (somehow!), we need think critically and expand our political vocabulary and consciousness. This course, a series of four classes, combines short (15 minute) lectures on basic organic gardening techniques with short lectures on topics of politics, from a radical revolutionary perspective. Based on these presentations, participants will be able to ask questions of the presenter, and to discuss their own perspectives on these topics and issues. The class offers a chance for participants to learn, to share, to think, and to prepare for an uncertain future.

Presenter Antonio Roman-Alcalá has been involved in urban agriculture, food justice, and food sovereignty work for the past 15+ years in the bay area. His work connects with social movements, scholarship, cultural production, and “sustainable hedonism”. This class is an offering, to benefit PLACE, a space of valuable community connection around topics of ecology and social change. So please donate what you can!

Political topic: “Urban farms: what are they good for?“

Gardening topic: starting plant starts and knowing how to water

Political topic: “socialism, communism, anarchism, and capitalist realism“

Gardening topic: knowing the differences between common vegetables we grow in the bay area

Political topic: “the abolition of everything? Applying abolition politics beyond police violence”

Political topic: “theories of change: elections, reforms, direct action, and more”

Organic Gardening and Revolutionary Politics